The Sweet and Hard Love That Binds Us

A poem by Pablo Neruda

Art: The Obscure Plant by Elena Flores

Music: Cold River, High Floor by Elias Blues

And because love battles not only in its burning agricultures but also in the mouth of men and women, I will finish off by taking the path away to those who between my chest and your fragrance want to interpose their obscure plant. About me, nothing worse they will tell you, my love, than what I told you. I lived in the prairies before I got to know you and I did not wait love but I was laying in wait for and I jumped on the rose. What more can they tell you? I am neither good nor bad but a man, and they will then associate the danger of my life, which you know and which with your passion you shared. And good, this danger is danger of love, of complete love for all life, for all lives, and if this love brings us the death and the prisons, I am sure that your big eyes, as when I kiss them, will then close with pride, into double pride, love, with your pride and my pride. But to my ears they will come before to wear down the tour of the sweet and hard love which binds us, and they will say: “The one you love, is not a woman for you, Why do you love her? I think you could find one more beautiful, more serious, more deep, more other, you understand me, look how she’s light, and what a head she has, and look at how she dresses, and etcetera and etcetera”. And I in these lines say: Like this I want you, love, love, Like this I love you, as you dress and how your hair lifts up and how your mouth smiles, light as the water of the spring upon the pure stones, Like this I love you, beloved.

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